Colorado City Polygamists: An Inside Look for the Outsider

Colorado City Polygamists is a rare view into the real reasons behind so called FLDS in Colorado City. I worked in the Fredonia/Colorado City area during the 1980s and witnessed first hand what is so accurately portrayed in this book. It is pitiful that greed and avarice of misguided "leaders" allowed the true tenets of FLDS to be kidnapped by charlatans and neer-do-wells. This is the first time that the reader gets a REAL look at polygamy and the distortions of old testament plural marriage beliefs. Believe me, I felt myself taken back to the times that I had to go to Colorado City on business and the constant observation by locals. Ben Bristline provides both, an excellent insight AND accurate portrayal, of life in Colorado City.

This is a very interesting book which helps explain why the polygamists believe what the do. It would have been helpful if there was a guide that stated the various peoples names and who they are.

Ben Bistline's history of the First Ward of Colorado City is unique excursion into a secretive group dedicated to a non-mainstream set of beliefs and practice. The Colorado City Polygamists is the shorter version of this history and is more suited to the general (and in particular) non-LDS reader. While a background in restorationist religious history is useful it is not essential to enjoying this insider view of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (or FLDS). The book is full of names and events of the 20th century development of a utopian group dedicated to a practice now shunned by the mainstream LDS church. For a student of American utopian experiments this story has the typical and sad end of most American experiments in group living with the rise of charismatic and erratic leader leading the people into the wilderness in the nominal pursuit of purity and truth. Do not look for sensational from this book but a respectful yet tough telling of the inside religious story of a eccentric group of American utopians.